


Bad At Making Friends

by Sendryl



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU Arena Fighters, Alternate Universe, Arena (mentioned), Everyone lives, Fighting (mentioned), First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Gifts, Introvert!Derek, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Not Really Mentioned Though, Run-On Sentences, Run-On Sentences Like WOAH, SO MUCH FLUFF, T-Shirts, Teasing!Stiles, Tumblr Prompt, Werewolves exist, exchanging gifts, shy!Derek, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 20:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9254609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sendryl/pseuds/Sendryl
Summary: Stiles buys Derek a shirt as a joke.Even though Derek gripes about it, he wears it.So Stiles buys him another.And another.And another.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You should probably read this...
> 
> Prompt from [roosterbox](http://roosterbox.tumblr.com/post/155581445044/necessaryocthings-which-oc-would-wear-this#notes).  
> "Which oc would wear this shirt"
> 
> Originally for two characters in my novel, but a simple name change makes it Sterek.  
> I realize what this says about these two characters.  
> Someday they will grow and develop their own personalities, and become gloriously perfect side characters like Miguel and Tulio.  
> BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.  
> Today they're Sterek.
> 
> Premise:  
> A bunch of supernatural people are summoned to an arena to fight.  
> They are mind-controlled to get to the arena whenever there is a fight scheduled.  
> Each fighter subconsciously summons teammates to help them win.  
> The stronger the connection, the more often a teammate is summoned.  
> Stiles is one of the fighters called to the arena, because he has magic.  
> The arena is magic and whatever injuries and deaths happen inside have no physical effect outside, but clothes and weapons can still be destroyed - living organics get healed.  
> Derek is a gentle werewolf who just wants to sit at home and read, but he gets yanked onto the team the day after he helps Stiles in a real life fight. He doesn't fight that first day in the arena, just protects Stiles and nearly gets himself killed doing so - keep in mind the fact that Derek doesn't know that injury and death aren't permanent in the arena. He just doesn't want Stiles to die.  
> They don't win that day, but they don't die either.  
> The next day, Stiles uses his magic to track Derek down and explain what's going on, and convince him to help fight in the arena.  
> Several months later, Stiles is subconsciously summoning Derek for nearly every fight.  
> If he could consciously summon Derek, he totally would.  
> Now we can jump into the story.

Stiles buys it for Derek. Like, immediately. As soon as he sees it. Three clicks, a size selection, some credit card and address info and it's on its way to him.  
And Derek totally wears it, because he’s still not sure that he and Stiles are friends, and he’s never gotten a shirt from anyone outside family before, and he’s super stoked, even though he insults Stiles’s taste and clothes, and gripes and moans about how he's wearing it because it’s his only clean, unripped shirt due to Stiles’s life, which Derek was pulled into under duress, he would like to point out, and he never wanted to be a fighter, and he doesn’t appreciate being made fun of, but Stiles does owe him like a million shirts, so he better keep buying them, or else.  
Stiles is quiet every time Derek brings up the shirt, or wears the shirt, or doesn’t wear the shirt and is gesturing to his torn clothing and demanding a replacement shirt.  
It becomes a common occurrence, Stiles listening while Derek rants about shirts.  
Stiles, confused but intrigued, eventually hands over another shirt:

After Derek wears it the next day, Stiles starts shopping for introvert joke shirts in earnest.  
Derek’s shirt du jour gets absolutely destroyed a week later, and Stiles waits until the shirtless Derek is getting into his car before shouting,

“Hey, stupid!”

Derek, of course, looks up, and gets hit in the face with this shirt:

He grumbles and pulls it over his head, but the face that pops out of the collar of the shirt is gleeful. He reads it upside down, and his grin only widens, before he ducks into his car, giggling. Stiles is poleaxed, stuck with one foot in his car, unable to move as Derek pulls away, laughing his head off. It wasn’t even that funny of a joke!  
Stiles resolves to buy all the introvert shirts he can find, and goes internet trawling as soon as he gets home. He hits the motherlode, and is adding fifteen cheap, hilarious shirts and a pair of bright purple socks - which are going to get to Derek tomorrow, come hell or high water - to his cart when he sees it. It’s perfect - referencing that old, saggy couch he had to drag Derek off of the first time they really talked - but it’s a tank top, and he’s never seen Derek wear one. He adds it to his cart anyway - because it’s hot pink, he can’t leave that alone! - and it’s only when he throws it at the back of Derek’s head, and Derek whips around to catch it - with his hands this time - and holds it up to his body, that Stiles realizes what he's done.  
He's accidentally bought Derek the racerback version of the tank, in a women’s large. He’d bought a large on purpose, ordering it one size too small, because he really needs to see Derek in a tight pink tank - that is a sight which absolutely needs to be seen - but a women’s large? There’s no way it’s going to fit him.

Derek stares at the shirt and raises a mildly-threatening eyebrow at Stiles before tugging his old shirt off by the back collar and slowly pulling on the tank. When he’s got it on, smoothing it down over his belly so it just kisses the top of his shorts, Stiles’s mouth has dropped open.  
The shirt is stretched to its limit, and when Derek stops smoothing it out and straightens, it slides up his stomach a full two inches. Stiles still has a pair of socks in his hand, having frozen when he realized his mistake, and Derek ambles over and tugs them free. He unties his shoes, replacing his socks with the joke ones, and all the while Stiles watches with his mouth open, eyes wide, unable to move or think, white noise filling his brain.

When Derek has his shoes back on, the bright purple of the socks stretched as high as they’ll go, he straightens from his crouch - Stiles might let out a tiny whine, because how did Derek get there and what is happening? - and then simply stands, locking eyes with Stiles.

And then he smiles. A tiny thing, a quirk of the corners of his mouth, really, nowhere near the laughing grin he’d given earlier in the week. This is a shy smile, Derek’s eyes crinkling at the corners and shining - what the what, that isn’t a real thing, eyes don’t _shine ___, except apparently they do when it’s _Derek ___, what is life right now - and Stiles can’t really breathe any more.

“Thanks, Stiles. I love it.”

And the thing is... The real kicker?

He’s completely serious.

Standing there in a tiny hot pink racerback with an inside joke none of the other fighters will bother to ask about, smiling that little smile at Stiles alone, and then ducking his head to kiss Stiles’s cheek.

Derek turns to walk away, and the sight of his back, his shoulders and muscles shifting smoothly as he goes, draws a strangled sound from Stiles. Derek twitches, but keeps walking, the back of his neck turning bright red, the flush traveling down his back to edge out the straps of the tight shirt.  
They get through the fight - the shirt is miraculously undamaged, and may actually have (read: totally had) distracted Derek’s opponents at various moments, moments which no one can blame them for - and Derek leaves before Stiles can say anything else to him. At the next fight, Stiles is getting out of the car, another tank top - men’s extra large this time - in his hand, when something soft hits him in the back of the head. Two somethings, he realizes when he grabs at his neck, catching the two shirts before they can hit the ground. He sees the green one first, a men’s medium, grinning at the slogan, turning to thank Derek with the proper amount of sass in his tone.

He stops at the nervous expression on Derek’s face, and Derek - who is actually, literally, _wringing his hands ___what even is Stiles’s life right now - tries to grin at him. It looks like he’s about to be sick all over the parking lot, and Stiles takes half a step in his direction, concerned, when Derek drops his hands. Stiles looks at Derek's shirt, confused for the split second it takes him to glance at the graphic.

__

Stiles’s eyes snap up to meet Derek’s, and Derek’s entire face is bright red, his hands behind his back, shoulders tight as he fidgets.

“You don’t have to,” Derek mumbles, finally breaking the silence.  
He rambles a little as Stiles unfolds the second shirt, and when he gets it open and stares at it, Derek goes quiet with a mortified moan.

“It’s just, I mean, it doesn’t have to be, I’m not trying to, why did I-”

Derek scrubs a hand over his face, and Stiles reaches into his back seat.

“Derek.”

Derek’s head snaps up in time to get a shirt in the face, normal as anything, and then Stiles lobs him a throw pillow, of all things. Derek unfolds the shirt, grateful for something to keep his hands busy, refusing to look at Stiles. His face is still red, but the color is slowly fading back to normal as he looks at the shirt.

Stiles is suddenly there beside him, having silently made his way over while Derek was staring at the shirt. Derek isn’t looking at Stiles - he’s too busy trying to figure out if the shirt means what he wants it to mean, and then second guessing himself because there’s no way he gets what he wants, he never gets what he wants, that’s crazy, so-

“If that isn’t clear enough for you,” Stiles is grinning, Derek can’t help glancing at his easy smile.

Stiles turns over the pillow in Derek’s other hand, grinning all the while.

“This should make it more obvious.”

Derek’s face goes even redder than before, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, his eyes wide. And Stiles just chuckles, pulling at the hem of his new shirt. Derek’s eyes manage to focus on the spoon on Stiles’s chest, and then Stiles’s hands are gently curving around his cheeks, and they’re both blushing, and Stiles’s grin falls into something softer, and Derek presses close to him, his hands and the shirt and the pillow squished in between them as they both move in and kiss. Derek’s lips are dry, and Stiles’s are rough because he’s constantly biting them during moments of stress, but they press against each other, eyes closed, noses brushing, until Stiles breaks the kiss with a grin. Derek grumbles and presses forward again, surprising Stiles, his wide eyes proof. The second kiss is shorter, and Derek tilts his forehead against Stiles’s to end it. They stand there for a few seconds, foreheads together, sharing their breath. The shirt and pillow are trapped between them, Stiles’s hands on Derek’s face, Derek’s hands pressed against Stiles’s chest.

“So I’ll be your big spoon and you’ll be my knight in shining tinfoil?” Stiles is breathless, with the same triumphant tone Derek knows so well from the arena award ceremonies.

Stiles is grinning, his smile threatening to split his face. Derek’s cheeks are starting to hurt already, unused to smiling so wide.

“I’ll be your little spoon, and I’ll get my ass in your bed, too,” Derek manages to respond, blushing furiously.

It helps that Stiles blushes just as fiercely. Somehow they manage to get the spare shirts and the pillow into the car without letting go of each other. They’re walking towards the arena, hands linked, Stiles swinging their arms in happiness, when he suddenly looks down at himself, and then over at Derek, a wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“Why am I the big spoon?”

Derek looks him over, not even an inch between their heights, and grins slowly.

“We can switch, sometime, if you’d like. I’m not picky.”

His grin speaks volumes, and Stiles’s answering grin lights up his bright red face.

“Yeah,” His voice definitely doesn’t crack, nope it does not. “Yeah, Derek. I can work with that.”

The next time they pull into the parking lot, Derek’s the big spoon, Stiles’s shirt wrapped tightly around his body, and Stiles’s the little spoon, Derek’s shirt hanging loose, showing off glimpses of flesh every time he moves. It gapes wide open when he leans down to flirt through Derek’s open window.

They’re an hour late to the arena.

**Epilogue**

Derek and Stiles get lots of packages in the mail. They devote the entire downstairs closet to their shirt collection. Stiles’s opening another package, has torn it all the way open, before he realizes it’s not addressed to "Stiles and Derek". It’s addressed to “Those Two Monster Idiots Who Won’t Stop Making Out During Fights Please Stop Making Out During Fights We Love You” and addressed from “Not Your Friends”. Inside are two pairs of women’s racerback tanks, one size large and one size small.

They wear the Monster shirts to the next anniversary fight, and the Idiot shirts to the subsequent awards ceremony, standing together, tall and proud, gold medals glinting as they kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Please let me know what you thought, and feel free to point out any mistakes.  
> I love this fandom, and I'm excited to contribute to it, even in a small way.  
> :)


End file.
